This year’s Road to LVO series is sponsored by Frontline Gaming.
Oh boy what a blur the last few weeks have been. I have recovered from the jet lag and caught up with a few of my IRL responsibilities and can now get back writing these articles for you, the wonderful reader. This week I’m going to be talking about the World Team Championship (WTC). Pay no attention to Rob cracking the whip behind me.
You can find my previous article, recapping my podium finish in Tacoma, here.
Spoilers: Team USA, who I am proudly a member of, took third! With a 5-1-1 record overall, with our loss being to France and our draw into Poland. While I was not in the starting eight line-up this go around, the team as a whole put a ton of work into this result and ending with a podium finish is huge. I know it’s not first but I really can’t express how big of a deal just doing well at this event is. It truly is the pinnacle of 40k talent and knowledge. Every top team works hard throughout the year to curate the best possible eight players and the lists they’re bringing to the event. It’s eleven months of grind that comes down to seven rounds and fifty-six total games of some of the best 40k you can play. Huge shout-outs to France and Germany for their podium finishes as well – well played to all!
While this is less about prep for the LVO event specifically, playing and prepping with the team is still an important part of my road to get there, and in this article I’ll be giving a broader view of the event covering my experiences and lessons learned.
What is the WTC?
The WTC, or the World Team Championship, is an annual event typically held somewhere in Europe where 40+ teams from around the world gather and duke it out across seven rounds of some of the most intense 40k one can play. Each country gets to send one team and they can determine their own rules on how to assemble that team. These follow a nearly identical system to the FIFA World Cup as to which nations get to send teams. Each team has eight players and games use differential scoring. Since differential points are the second tie breaker aside from match points, every win and every point matters.
Robnote: You can find more info on the 40k teams format here.
At the start of the event, teams are split into pods, each ideally containing four teams, though in some cases (like this year) a pod may have six teams if the number of teams isn’t divisible by four. Teams are seeded 1-4 (given a tier ranking) based on their performance in prior events and teams from each tier are placed into each pod. In the first three rounds of the event, teams play the other three teams in their pods. Starting in round four, Swiss pairings are used and this is often the most important round of the event as it’ll see two of the top-scoring teams face off. This year, that was when Team USA played Team France.
After seven rounds, a winner is determined. This isn’t a knock out style event – in the past teams with multiple draws or a loss have won it all. Even this year in round 7 Team USA was still in contention for first despite losing to France in Round 4.
My Role in All of This
“So what was your role in all this, Ben?” Well, the answer to that question depends on when you’re asking – I wore multiple hats in the lead-up to the event and during. In the lead-up I was very active in getting practice reps for the Team USA starters, but once we were at the event I became the social media man. I’d attend meetings, post pairings and results, take pictures – all the fun stuff. I also wore a second (third?) hat during the event, joining the War Games Live stream team. That’s what ended up consuming the majority of my time and energy at the event.
The WGL Experience
Joe from Wargames Live reached out to me once it was revealed that I had not made the starting roster for Team USA during this year’s selection process and asked if I would help run coverage at WTC this year. It’s not often I reply to the idea of four days of hard work with a jubilant “yes,” but joining a talented team with plenty of WTC experience and teams knowledge was a great opportunity. I’d be joining Adam Camilleri (a veteran of too many 40k content things to mention) and Typhus and Arek, formerly members of Team Poland for a number of years.
We didn’t have much of a plan going in but we each found a niche and rotation that worked extremely well for us as a team. Joe and Adam played the role of talking heads and the three of us split duties on overall event coverage, with updates on the big players at the event. We were asked to cover a few potential storylines – some of my favorites were “can Belgium break out and become a 1-seed this year?” and “how underrated is China as a 4-seed?”
Of these, the Belgium story was one of my personal favorites as it was a Cinderella story until the end. Team Belgium is captained by one of the best, if not the best players in the world, Liam VSL. Under Liam they had a historic run this year, punching up into Germany in the pod stage while also making it all the way to the final round against France while staying in contention for the #1 finish. It was an incredible and feel-good story to follow and having finished 7th overall, they’ll be a 1-seed next year.
As for China, they started off hot against England in the first round, nearly taking England to a draw – so much so they surely had had the team sweating the results. They definitely proved this year that they’re a contender, and will be a team to watch at next year’s event.
I fell into a great groove after the first couple rounds, interacting in the YouTube chat while running around the entire event talking to all of the coaches of the respective teams. It was a fun way to keep people who wanted to know updated on the status of their favorite teams. I was asked for an update on nearly every team at least once. It was a very good way to let Adam and Joe focus on the streamed round while providing coverage on the other big games and I loved covering the teams outside of seed 1 who don’t get as much attention or have streams of their own.
I also got to meet so many new people and make a ton of friends in the process. Turns out that constantly asking “how does your team feel about their pairings” or “where are you projecting in the round right now” is a great conversation starter and it was even more of a blast to interview both sides of a round to see if they even agreed on how things were going.
It truly was a unique experience and some of the most fun at WTC I have ever had – and I say that as someone who’s started for a team and coached a team in the past. This year I had a top-down, full-team coverage view of the entire event that I don’t think many people get to have. When you’re playing you barely know how your other teammates are doing, let alone other teams or other rounds. When you’re coaching you’re locked in directly on his the current round and team result. Instead I could see the trajectory of every team, getting to see so many cool matchups and the critical games for each team. I got a front-row seat to the panic, the stress, the joy, and the excitement spilling out as teams either rose or fell to the occasion.
I’d do this again in a heartbeat. The only thing that’d keep me from another go on the stream team would be starting for Team USA.
Lessons Learned Along the Way
So four days and 1,172 games later, what have we learned? I think the most interesting lesson is just how much an 8 vs 8 teams setting cools the jets at the top of the meta. Armies like Death Guard, Knights, and Chaos Knights were toned down a bit in results as teams enter the event either with answers to the top dogs or at least ways to blunt them. We saw players who have a storied history of being top scorers held down a bit by having one or two suboptimal pairings while piloting one of the “boogey man” factions.
Oh and speaking of boogey men: While Team USA and France went to the event with no knights lists on their rosters, other teams with two knight rosters had some great performances. These teams would often find out that even if one knight player got pinned, the other would get to run free, and sometimes even if a “pin” occurred, it just didn’t matter – even in a bad matchup, a knights player could high roll their way to a win or the pin purely held them to a small loss overall and not a blowout.
This year France was the best team in the room, and they absolutely earned that first place finish. And I mean that in more than just their placing – they have an extraordinary roster, an amazing set of support staff, a stream covering all 8 tables as well as some of the best sportsmanship in the room. They just felt and looked more prepared than anyone else. As I always like to say, “the hardest-working people in the room often win” and this still proves true. I know firsthand just how hard the USA works and it shows as well, even if the team ended up finishing below France.
As for the location well, we are not going back to Leoben. Leoben, Austria is a beautiful mountain town that is quiet and has pristine mountain views. That’s where my compliments stop. Logistically the town proved too difficult to get to – it’s a two-hour train ride from the Vienna International Airport, and for most travelers will require connecting through another airport on the way. Not helping things was that this year’s event occurred during a week of historically high temps for the region and the ACs at the venue weren’t able to keep up, turning it into a sauna. Not to mention power outages at the venue, the more than 10-minute drive from the hotels, and the fact that the food situation in the town was at best mediocre. The nightlife was dull in comparison to previous years as well. The town may be a good fit for the Alpine Cup, but I don’t think it’s a good fit for the WTC and I’m thankful that the event organizers have already made it clear that we won’t be returning to Leoben next year.
A venue and location can really make or break an event and I’m really looking forward to how nice LVO is going to be for me after this one.
Back to the Grind
It’s only 51 weeks (or sooner) until the next WTC and that means getting back to work. We have to elect next year’s Team USA captain. We have to select a new academy and repeat the team building and selection process all over again. With Captain applications going out in September and players in October, the WTC grind just doesn’t stop. If you’re interested in following along, I’d recommend checking out the Team USA Facebook page, where we’ll post when forms go live – Team USA Facebook page.
And if you’re interested, I’d recommend checking out our charter, to brush up on how this all works.
I’ve got mixed feelings on competing again to try out for Team USA. It takes a ton of dedication to the craft – so much so that you can really get burnt out. I’ve got a day job and a wife. But it only took a few questions from my wonderful partner to decide that yeah, I want to do it again. I didn’t know what to expect but all I received was unconditional support so once again I’ll be applying and hopefully re-entering the process.
Next Up: WTC USA Round by Round Recap and The Utah Cup
That wraps up this week’s Road to LVO but I’ll be back next week to cover WTC round by round from a Team USA PoV, followed by some coverage of my Utah Cup results (get ready for some Chaos Knights). It’s a long road to LVO, and there are a few more twists and turns yet.
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